Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c14.41

c14.41

§ 46. I cannot do better than quote here the description of the administration procedure of these republics as typified by that of the Śākyan, so well summed up by Rhys Davids, the foremost authority on Buddhist literature. In view of the results of a special study of the republican organisation, I differ from that great scholar when he calls them ‘clans.’ The evidence does not warrant our calling them 'clans.' Indian republics of the seventh and sixth centuries B. C., as we shall see in sequence, had long passed the tribal stage of society. They were states, Gaņas and Saṁghas, though many of them very likely had a national or tribal basis, as every state, ancient or modern, must have.